Jeremy Hunt and the NHS

I was quite appalled to read today that Jeremy Hunt has imposed a contract on the NHS despite vocal opposition from the 55,000 doctors involved. Apart from the bullying, it raises many questions about his motives for doing so. Let’s face it, he’s made no secret of the fact that he would like to see our NHS changed from a national service to one based on individual insurance policies. This really has to make him the most unsuitable person to be in charge of the NHS. He claims that it will benefit patients but his arguments so far don’t bear scrutiny – you can’t increase the amount of cover provided without also increasing the resources and so far his strategy for that seems to be “work the doctors harder!”.

Certainly my feeling is that I will believe 55,000 doctors before I believe Jeremy Hunt. Reminds me about the old joke:

Q: How do you when a politician is lying?

A: His mouth is moving!

You only have to look at the USA, which already uses this unfair system, to see the results: a country with the most advanced medical care in the world but where regular access to that care is only available to the rich! It’s almost unbelievable that in the richest country in the world people die from preventable and treatable medical conditions just because they are poor. I’m sure that most developing countries manage to do better. It certainly makes you wonder how much money Hunt is getting from the private health care sector to promote this system.